Official GTAIV Thread - Page 2

Tipstaff · May 12, 2008, 04:37 AM

Well what do you know? I've been playing around with my launch day Xbox 360, wondering why all these people are having RROD issues galore, yet mine has been fine for 2.5 years. Sure enough, mid way through the "Final Interview" mission in GTAIV last night it RROD. SOAB! Up until now the system has been running fine, but I guess GTAIV just pushed my 360 too much, and over the edge it went. Oh well.

<sigh> Figures. I've been having one bad thing after another happening to me the last 2 weeks, and sure enough this has to happen. In a way, though, thank God it happened now, because in October of this year the 3 year RROD warranty was going to expire. Now if Microsoft reneges on covering it I'm going to be out the money to buy a replacement, so I hope to God they don't give me any grief on this.

This sucks.

Markius · May 12, 2008, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BiGBrOwNPimpsta

I think the 360 held back this game a lot, why? DVD, thats why! It could be so much more if it was a PS3 exclusive IMO.

thats crap.
if they needed extra room to make a game "better" there is nothing stopping any developer making 360 versions on 2 DVDs (or however many are needed)
the only thing blueray discs have in their favour is the amount of room on them.

BiGBrOwNPimpsta · May 12, 2008, 10:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Markius

thats crap.
if they needed extra room to make a game "better" there is nothing stopping any developer making 360 versions on 2 DVDs (or however many are needed)
the only thing blueray discs have in their favour is the amount of room on them.

hopefully they do that next game

Tipstaff · May 12, 2008, 11:24 PM

Would that not take longer for the system to find, and then read that data off the disc? In the case of movies having all that space is great since the movie will be recorded and read in a linear fashion from that disc, but for a game, would this not cause a lot of read hashing since the system could, or rather would be loading data from different locations and layers on the same disc, because game data is not stored on an optical disc in a linear fashion?

Case in point, we already see a small amount of this with the 360 version of GTAIV, which is on a dual layered DVD. Just imagine what would happen if the game was loading from a 30+ GB full BR disc, pulling data from all over that disc on the fly... that's a damn scary thought.

As I said, for movies it's fine, but loading up a BR disc full of data? I'd hate to hear the machine that has to pull off reading that disc.

Markius · May 12, 2008, 11:34 PM

i heard rockstar are making a ps3 exclusive "new franchise".
i dont know any details.

Markius · May 12, 2008, 11:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

Would that not take longer for the system to find, and then read that data off the disc? In the case of movies having all that space is great since the movie will be recorded and read in a linear fashion from that disc, but for a game, would this not cause a lot of read hashing since the system could, or rather would be loading data from different locations and layers on the same disc, because game data is not stored on an optical disc in a linear fashion?

Case in point, we already see a small amount of this with the 360 version of GTAIV, which is on a dual layered DVD. Just imagine what would happen if the game was loading from a 30+ GB full BR disc, pulling data from all over that disc on the fly... that's a damn scary thought.

As I said, for movies it's fine, but loading up a BR disc full of data? I'd hate to hear the machine that has to pull off reading that disc.

id assume thats why most of the "good" games on ps3 need an install.

BiGBrOwNPimpsta · May 12, 2008, 11:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

Would that not take longer for the system to find, and then read that data off the disc? In the case of movies having all that space is great since the movie will be recorded and read in a linear fashion from that disc, but for a game, would this not cause a lot of read hashing since the system could, or rather would be loading data from different locations and layers on the same disc, because game data is not stored on an optical disc in a linear fashion?

Case in point, we already see a small amount of this with the 360 version of GTAIV, which is on a dual layered DVD. Just imagine what would happen if the game was loading from a 30+ GB full BR disc, pulling data from all over that disc on the fly... that's a damn scary thought.

As I said, for movies it's fine, but loading up a BR disc full of data? I'd hate to hear the machine that has to pull off reading that disc.

thats why there is an install... which I think should be optional. the BD drive tech will be better in the future that won't require all that installing hopefully

Tipstaff · May 13, 2008, 03:22 AM

Yeah, it does help. I just remember an article that came out a month ago (I think it was on 1Up) that talked about why there was an install feature on the PS3 in the first place. Unlike DVD drives which read data at different speeds depending on which part of the disc it reads from (inner to outer track) BRs read at one speed. This creates a problem where as more and more data gets added the slower the BR player gets when reading data from varying points on the disc. However, that's not the only issue. It seems that developers are not properly recording BRDs they way they should, or rather they are not optimizing the data for the medium, but are instead recording to them, or creating the images for the discs as if they were recording data DVDs. Since BR readers don't read the same way this can cause slowdowns, so as a cheat developers are purposefully forcing installs (or doing "mandatory installs" as they called it) to get around their laziness. I look at a game like Dark Sector, a game that has no install, yet runs and loads just as smooth as the 360 version, and I have to wonder why the hell other games aren't like this. That article pretty much told me why.

Getting back to GTAIV (and it's killing me not being able to play it right now), if Rockstar did use the space on the BRD, how much better would GTAIV be? What could they add that would make it stand out from the 360 version, that would take advantage of all that extra space, enhance the game, yet not slowdown it down, or just be fluff?

BlueMak · May 13, 2008, 04:36 AM

Was the reason for the PS3 640p resolution a capacity consideration or hardware limitation?

BiGBrOwNPimpsta · May 13, 2008, 10:38 AM

i haven't met that hot bitch lollipop yet...

Tipstaff · May 14, 2008, 01:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BlueMak

Was the reason for the PS3 640p resolution a capacity consideration or hardware limitation?

Consistent framerates, and in a few games cases, lighting (Bungie stated that the reason for the lower rez use in Halo 3 was that they use 2 frame buffers, and render low dynamic range textures into one, and high dynamic range textures into the other). There's a bunch of games out there, for both systems, that are like this, and it's not confined to one rez either. Some use higher or lower, and rely on the system to upscale. DMC4, Halo 3, MLB08, COD3 (630p) and 4 (600p), PGR3, PDZ, Tony Hawk's Proving Ground, Rachet & Clank (it's something like 700-710p), Resistance, Tomb Raider Legends (and I think Anniversary), and The Darkness (which from what I remember had a lower rez on the PS3 than the 360 just like GTAIV does, but way, way lower.. something like 530p) but to name a few.

BlueMak · May 14, 2008, 06:39 AM

I guess we have to wait for the next generation of consoles for better support of 1080p then.

Pluvious · May 16, 2008, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

Well what do you know? I've been playing around with my launch day Xbox 360, wondering why all these people are having RROD issues galore, yet mine has been fine for 2.5 years. Sure enough, mid way through the "Final Interview" mission in GTAIV last night it RROD. SOAB! Up until now the system has been running fine, but I guess GTAIV just pushed my 360 too much, and over the edge it went. Oh well.

<sigh> Figures. I've been having one bad thing after another happening to me the last 2 weeks, and sure enough this has to happen. In a way, though, thank God it happened now, because in October of this year the 3 year RROD warranty was going to expire. Now if Microsoft reneges on covering it I'm going to be out the money to buy a replacement, so I hope to God they don't give me any grief on this.

This sucks.

Haven't posted on DH for months, but I had to pop in and offer my condolences TipStaff, that sucks.

At least you got almost 3 years out of that one.
I'll keep my fingers crossed for ya that you get a newer CD-ROM drive or better yet, a whole new machine from MS.

Keep us posted on how long it takes to get it back, I suspect it won't be as long as it was back when all the hoopla was going on. (I think they just got overwhelmed with all the RRoD returns after they extended the coverage. Everyone sent them in all at once)

smurfdude · May 19, 2008, 08:16 AM

I've got about 90% completed now. Those stunt jumps and shooting the flying rats are going to take the longest to do

What a game though...it's been seriously good. I might even go and complete it again while i wait for Ninja Gaiden II